# I pit the derisive, condenscending, anti-conspiriacy ... \[merged threads\] **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 29, 2012, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653 "2012-06-29T02:19:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/201 "2012-07-05T00:17:58Z")
One of the funniest damned things I find in the entire Illuminati bullshit is this. Almost all of the CTs postulate that the goal of these societies is to control the world and reduce us to servitude. Most of them postulate that society as we know it will be destroyed and we’ll be reduced to the dark ages under their control. This has the following flaws; 1\> If they’ve been working at this for 200+ years, they’re **miserable incompetent fuckups** , because we keep advancing, the population growing, we’re getting objectively more comfortable, richer and living longer. The complete opposite of stated goals. 2\> The rich only live in such opulance and comfort, surrounded by all manner of luxury precisely because we have advanced to where it is readily available and affordable. Flat screen TVs and tablet computers only exist because billions of dollars were spent under the expectation of selling millions of the damned things, and they only improve because there is such a large and lucrative market. If there were only say, 10,000 illuminati living in luxury while the rest of us lived in mud huts, their ‘luxury’ would be that they lived in slightly less muddy huts. The economics and technology they currently live in would collapse along with the rest of the world. 3\> Along those lines, daily access to luxury goods produced all over the globe depend on cheap and abundant transportation. That exists because millions are able to afford it every day. Take away the masses’ ability to do this and you deprive the megarich of their cheap and abundant wines, scotch, salmon, exotic fruits, etc. 4\> Being slave masters of millions is a lot of work and is fraught with dangers of revolt and assassination. Running an investment bank or owning that bank produces much higher rewards than outright evil. 5\> Central Planning has shown itself to be a miserable failure. Cite: Every goddamned totalitarian so-called ‘Communist’ state. If a bureacracy of hundreds of thousands or millions couldn’t do it, how the fuck do a small cabal of ‘elites’ do it? ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/202 "2012-07-05T00:37:06Z")
> [@42fish](#): > > That’s not evidence for the Illuminati. That’s evidence for the Bush administration being slimy. At least you’re getting closer: > [@Marley23](#): > > So we’ve just gone from 242 people to thousands and thousands of people. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/203 "2012-07-05T00:39:05Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > At least you’re getting closer: Has the whole entire board lost its collective mind and gone totally batshit insane today, or is it just me? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/204 "2012-07-05T00:43:34Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Has the whole entire board lost its collective mind and gone totally batshit insane today, or is it just me? There does seem to be a higher level of background noise today. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/205 "2012-07-05T00:46:31Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > The truth is just a way for The Man to keep us down. There might actually be something to that… One of the first steps in any really successful revolution is the institution of an entirely new truth. (Fortunately, the institution of a new truth does not always lead to a successful revolution!) > [@Smeghead](#): > > Has the whole entire board lost its collective mind and gone totally batshit insane today, or is it just me? False dichotomy: it might be you and only a few others, but not everyone. Um… Like… Hm… Okay, ya got me: it’s everyone! ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/206 "2012-07-05T00:54:17Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > There might actually be something to that… One of the first steps in any really successful revolution is the institution of an entirely new truth. I thought the first step in a successful revolution was to destroy all competing revolutionaries. At least that’s what that one song tells me. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/207 "2012-07-05T05:11:31Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > At least you’re getting closer: You’re doing that coy bullshit again. One of the reasons I think you might be mentally ill is the fact that you appear to think the posts you are making are meaningful. A lot of them are not. Earlier you said 242 people run the world as if the head of every government runs the nation by himself. I said that was idiotic, and it was transparently idiotic. Rather than accepting this obvious point, you’re now trying to use it as evidence for your conspiracy theory. How does this work in your mind? _It’s evidence against your theory_. Barack Obama doesn’t run the U.S. by himself. The government in this country alone includes one president, 15 cabinet members, 535 Congressional Representatives, nine Supreme Court justices, and (to me) uncountable other advisers and critical staffers. Then there are the state level governments. That’s just the U.S. The government structure in a lot of other countries is generally similar. How does that work with your “242 people run the world and get their marching orders from the Illuminati” bullshit? Really, talk to a psychiatrist. This is boring and stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/208 "2012-07-05T05:24:15Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > 2\> The rich only live in such opulance and comfort, surrounded by all manner of luxury precisely because we have advanced to where it is readily available and affordable. Flat screen TVs and tablet computers only exist because billions of dollars were spent under the expectation of selling millions of the damned things, and they only improve because there is such a large and lucrative market. If there were only say, 10,000 illuminati living in luxury while the rest of us lived in mud huts, their ‘luxury’ would be that they lived in slightly less muddy huts. The economics and technology they currently live in would collapse along with the rest of the world. > 3\> Along those lines, daily access to luxury goods produced all over the globe depend on cheap and abundant transportation. That exists because millions are able to afford it every day. Take away the masses’ ability to do this and you deprive the megarich of their cheap and abundant wines, scotch, salmon, exotic fruits, etc. To be fair, an awful lot of rich and wannabe-rich don’t seem to grasp that. They seem to buy the idea that the wealthy elite do everything of importance and are responsible for everything worthwhile, and the rest of us are just lazy, disposable drones. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/209 "2012-07-05T05:30:45Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > I’ll have to disagree. I don’t care if people are idiots, as long as they’re idiots on account of their own reasoning. Some of my best friends are complete idiots. I’m probably an idiot. And a contrarian one at that. :rolleyes: Made-up, pattern seeking, paranoid bullshit is nothing to be impressed about, especially from their own reasoning. Anyone can do that if they’re ignorant jackasses or smoked a fucking joint. You seem to mistake CTs for actual intellectual thought and critical thinking. Seriously, watch that [TED Talk about 4 o’clock in the Morning.](http://blog.ted.com/2007/07/19/rives_exposes_t_1/) It’s uncannily the same thought process, wonderfully satired by Rives, that **Kozmik** is using here. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/210 "2012-07-05T06:49:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > To be fair, an awful lot of rich and wannabe-rich don’t seem to grasp that. They seem to buy the idea that the wealthy elite do everything of importance and are responsible for everything worthwhile, and the rest of us are just lazy, disposable drones. Perhaps. But the Bill Gates’ and Warren Buffets and their like, the people who actually own and/or run the companies that make this stuff, have a solid clue as to what kind of economies of scale are necessary to create and improve this shit in the first place. It’s kinda why I always laugh at the Star Trek episodes where the find a colony of mere hundreds or a couple of thousand that has been lost for generations. And the people have nice clothing, large buildings, transportation and tech items. I have an awareness of how much work each of those items requires from zero to raw materials to finished goods, and I laugh to think that they somehow mined all the various materials from widely scattered sites (which they found how?), grew the plants, manufactured all the chemicals and then had to make the large number of small batch finished goods they’d need. “Hey Fred, we’re going to need 20 more tires in size x and 60 in size y. How soon can you have those for us?” ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/211 "2012-07-05T07:14:30Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Americans are a pretty paranoid bunch of people in my experience. And the rest of the world isn’t? > [@Marley23](#): > > Al Qaeda was behind the attacks and it’s not a country, but why the fuck is the Illuminati necessary? Because the Illuminati, like Al Qaeda, is not connected to any one country. Even though 15 of the 19 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia, that does not mean that Saudi Arabia was behind the attacks. > [@Marley23](#): > > as if the head of every government runs the nation by himself. Something we can agree on. > [@Marley23](#): > > Barack Obama doesn’t run the U.S. by himself. The government in this country alone includes one president, 15 cabinet members, 535 Congressional Representatives, nine Supreme Court justices, and (to me) uncountable other advisers and critical staffers. George W. Bush _didn’t_ run the U.S. (or the world for that matter) by himself. He had [PNAC members](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#Associations_with_Bush_administration) in his cabinet and as advisers and critical staffers. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/212 "2012-07-05T11:45:30Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > Because the Illuminati, like Al Qaeda, is not connected to any one country. The International Red Cross isn’t connected to any one county either. How do you that they weren’t the ones behind 9/11 instead of the Illuminati? Face it, anyone constantly trying to suck out your blood is pretty damn suspicious. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/213 "2012-07-05T13:55:20Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > and the rest of us are just lazy, disposable drones. No, the leaders of every government are disposable drones to _them_. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/214 "2012-07-05T14:16:14Z")
Does **Alessan** ’s quote, which you agreed with in [post 140,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15234931&postcount=140) accurately describe the strongest evidence you have to connect Stuxnet to the Illuminati? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/215 "2012-07-05T15:37:31Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > And the rest of the world isn’t? I can’t speak to every country, but I do see Americans as being very paranoid. Then again, a lot of people in the Middle East blame the Jews for everything. > [@](#): > > Because the Illuminati, like Al Qaeda, is not connected to any one country. That doesn’t address why they are necessary to make the theory work. Want to try again? > [@](#): > > Something we can agree on. Then why did you say “242 people run the world?” > [@](#): > > He had [PNAC members](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#Associations_with_Bush_administration) in his cabinet and as advisers and critical staffers. Yes, it turns out the Republican president had conservative advisers and staffers! Crazy shit, right! Must be the work of the Illuminati. There’s no other explanation. > [@Kozmik](#): > > No, the leaders of every government are disposable drones to _them_. There’s no _them_. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/216 "2012-07-05T15:39:47Z")
Oh come on. There’s always a THEM to tiny minds. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/217 "2012-07-05T15:45:00Z")
[Them!](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047573/)? ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/218 "2012-07-05T15:49:46Z")
> [@Ace309](#): > > Does **Alessan** ’s quote, which you agreed with in [post 140,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15234931&postcount=140) accurately describe the strongest evidence you have to connect Stuxnet to the Illuminati? Yes. > [@Marley23](#): > > Then why did you say “242 people run the world?” Because politics, at the highest level, is believed to be between [countries](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population). I claim that that there are higher levels. [QUOTE=The New York Times, July 5, 2012] Italy and Germany are “willing to work together” to overcome the crisis afflicting the currency bloc, Ms. Merkel said Wednesday before a meeting of German and Italian officials and business executives. Mr. Monti said both countries understood the need to cede some sovereignty to build a stronger Europe. [/QUOTE] And to build a stronger New World Order. ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/219 "2012-07-05T15:51:34Z")
Is Stuxnet your strongest evidence for the existence of some higher level of politics? ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/220 "2012-07-05T15:55:08Z")
> [@Ace309](#): > > Is Stuxnet your strongest evidence for the existence of some higher level of politics? Yes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653.md?page=12)